Pay stubs in Puerto Rico: the 8 items the law requires

The eight items, plainly

In Puerto Rico the pay stub is not a courtesy from the employer nor a format each company invents. It is regulated, and the list is closed.

**Regulation No. 9017 of the Department of Labor and Human Resources**, of **April 4, 2018**, administering Act No. 379 of 1948, says in its **Article XV** that **every employer shall supply each worker with a pay stub** containing the information it details. Eight items:

Read them again with an eye on the fifth and sixth, because that is where money gets lost. The regulation does not ask for "the hours": it asks for the **total of regular and overtime hours**, separately. And it does not ask for "the pay": it asks for **wages earned for regular and for overtime hours**, also separately. If your stub lumps everything into a single "gross pay" line, it is not meeting what the regulation requires, and it is hiding precisely the figure you would use to check whether overtime was paid correctly.

And note the seventh. Additions and deductions are not listed bare: the stub must state **the concept for which they are made**. A deduction with no stated concept does not comply.

• **Employer's name and address.**
• **Employee's name.**
• **Position.**
• **Date and work period covered by the payment.**
• **Total regular and overtime hours.**
• **Wages earned for regular and for overtime hours.**
• **Additions and deductions, stating the concept for which they are made.**
• **Net amount received by the employee.**

How it must be delivered: the five-day rule

The same Article XV answers the most common question: paper or digital?

**There are no form requirements for delivering the pay stub.** The regulation says that verbatim. Paper, portal, email, the form is open.

What is not open is the deadline. The employer **shall make the stub available, within the term of five (5) calendar days after payment, through some method that guarantees its receipt**. Five calendar days, not business days.

And one rule settles the email argument: **the employer will be considered to have satisfied the availability requirement if it sends the pay stub to an email address provided by the employee**. Note the condition, which is what gets overlooked: the address must have been **provided by the employee**. An address the employer assumes does not count, nor does a portal nobody showed you how to use.

Practical advice: if it arrives by email or lives in a portal, download and keep every stub yourself. When the job ends, access closes, and the stub is the main evidence in nearly any wage claim.

What your employer keeps on you, by regulation

The stub is the tip. Behind it is a file that **Article XVI** of the same regulation requires the employer to keep, and knowing what is in it helps the day you have to claim something, because it is exactly what a Labor Department inspector will ask for.

**The employee register** carries: full name and sex; address including zip code; date of birth and Social Security number; date employment with the company began; and date it ended, where applicable.

**The payrolls** are more detailed, and here is the material that sustains a claim. In addition to the employer's name, address and class of business, and the date and period covered by the payment, they must contain, for each employee:

Note the third item against the fourth, because they are not the same and it is what separates a real payroll from a summary: hours must be kept **per day** and also totaled **for the week**. Daily hours prove things a weekly total hides, starting with the workday over eight hours that in Puerto Rico is already overtime.

• **Full name.**
• **Position.**
• **Regular and overtime hours worked per day.**
• **Total regular and overtime hours worked during the week.**
• **Rate of compensation for regular and overtime hours.**
• **Total compensation earned in regular and overtime hours.**
• **If paid by units produced:** number of units produced, rate of compensation per unit, and total compensation earned for those units.
• **Total additions or deductions** from wages paid in each pay period, and the concept for which they are made.
• **Net amount received** by each employee.
• **Physical or electronic signature of the employer** or its authorized representative.

Vacation, sick leave and attendance: the record almost nobody asks for

Article XVI has a third block, of **additional information** the employer keeps "using the method and manner most appropriate" for its business. It is short and the most useful of all:

That last attendance item is the one to keep in mind. The regulation does not ask only for clock-in and clock-out: it asks for **the hour or period assigned for meals, specifically noting when it begins and ends, and including any agreement to reduce it**. That detail exists because in Puerto Rico working through the meal period is paid at time and a half, and without the exact time recorded there is no way to prove it.

And the sixth item connects to another common fight: the employer must keep **any request and response regarding a change of schedule, working hours or workplace**, and also requests and responses about alternate weekly schedule agreements. If you asked for a schedule change in writing, that request and its answer are part of the file by regulation.

• **Number of vacation days accrued.**
• **Number of vacation days taken during the year.**
• **Number of sick leave days accrued.**
• **Number of sick leave days taken during the year.**
• **Daily attendance sheet or record**, including start time, the time the workday ends, and the hour or period assigned for meals with its beginning and end.
• **Any request and response regarding a change of schedule, working hours or workplace**, and those about alternate weekly schedule agreements.

Three years, secure and accessible, and subject to inspection

**Article XVII** closes the matter with the rule most worth knowing before claiming something old.

Each employer has discretion to set up the recordkeeping system that best fits its business, so long as the records contain all the information the regulation requires. But all those documents **must be kept securely and accessibly for a term of three (3) years**, and **are subject to inspection at any time by the Secretary or designated staff**.

"At any time" is not decoration. The regulation adds that, at the request of the Secretary or an authorized representative, every employer must prepare and supply the reports, exhibits, computations, transcription of information from its files, or any other data and statistics requested, **under oath, if so required**.

There is the practical value of this guide. When you claim before the Bureau of Labor Standards, you are not asking to be believed: you are asking that a file the employer is required to keep be reviewed, with defined contents and three years of depth. And if the file does not exist or is incomplete, that absence says something too.

One last note on deadlines not to be confused: the three years are for **record retention**, not the period to file a claim. The period to claim wages is a separate matter and we cover it in the wage claim guide linked below.

What to do with your pay stub this week

Pull up the latest one and run the list of eight over it. The question is not whether the stub looks professional: it is whether it carries all eight items, with regular and overtime hours separated, and with the concept of each deduction written out.

If something is missing, start by asking. Often it is a payroll system setting and gets fixed without a fight. Ask in writing (email works) and keep the answer.

Meanwhile, keep your own record of hours starting today, even a note on your phone with clock-in, clock-out and when you took your meal period. It is the same thing the regulation requires of the employer, and if one day the two records do not match, having yours changes the conversation.

If the employer does not correct it, the claim goes to the **Bureau of Labor Standards** of the Department of Labor, which administers this regulation and has offices in Central, Arecibo, Mayagüez, Ponce, Caguas and Humacao. And if what lies behind it is unpaid wages or overtime, there are two more routes (the Act 2 of 1961 summary procedure and the federal Wage and Hour Division complaint) which we cover separately.